Features

Crossing the busy A66 in Temple Sowerby just North of Appleby can be a risky business.

Building the Cliburn underpass

 Last time the BBC bus was there I  took a behind the scenes tour of the  new bypass. When the road building is finished crossing the road in Temple Sowerby should be a lot easier.

Dressed in regulation safety gear including a yellow waistcoat, hard hat, spectacles and gloves I got to know more about bridge building, underpasses and the environmental demands of modern road building than I had ever imagined when touring the highways and byways of Cumbria. 

Forget gangs of navvies, shovels and picks in hand ...

... Think large, shiny and efficient machines.  

I got up close and personal with the underpinnings of the bridge which will carry the road over the River Eden.

Bridge support at River Eden

Piers, concrete columns, back fills and bankseats form the parts of the bridge which will only be seen from a fish eye view when the road is finished.

A small gang of steel erectors fiddled with intricate ties and wiring to form the framework of the west bank seat, into which concrete would be poured.

The Eden flowed undisturbed across its flood plain between the Morland and Cliburn roads, while all about it huge mounds of earth are shifted and shaped to create the long awaited Temple Sowerby bypass.

Heading towards Penrith on the left hand side of the bypass, there will be four kilometres of dry stone wall.

Filling a dry stone wall

Hand built, metre by metre, by local craftsman in the time honoured tradition from local red sandstone.

The new bypass will have three bridges, two underpasses, a pedestrian underpass which connects into an existing green lane and the Acton Lodge accommodation bridge.

The new road has been designed to carry  carry up to 95% of the traffic that currently passes through Temple Sowerby.

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